


Trade Mistakes

by Ace_Of_Fleurons



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Emotional Hurt, Flash Fic, Friendship, Heavy Angst, I mean there's a whole lot of angst in here, Transformation, for optimal feels listen to "Hakujitsu" while reading this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-08 17:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18899419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_Of_Fleurons/pseuds/Ace_Of_Fleurons
Summary: After suffering a mortal wound at the Aburano Koji Incident, Heisuke is offered a second chance at life. He stands between death at the cost of every decision he's ever made, and life at the cost of his humanity. What he chooses, and what consequences follow after, is hidden behind closed doors.





	Trade Mistakes

Once more, he made a mistake. Some days he felt he made so many of them that it nullified any good decisions he made, gradually dying his entire life into the black of his consequences. For the most part, he could clean these poor choices, saving his doubtful heart from pain. But this time was different. This time, the consequences of his mistake came after the greatest moment of his life, when he found his purpose to fight. It gave meaning to the swings of his sword, relief to his tired heart, and hope to once more hold the hand of the one he loved so dearly. In retaliation, this mistake gifted him the reality that he would never be able to hold anything ever again. The stain could not be erased.

Heisuke lay face down on a futon used for medical examinations, blood weeping from a gaping slash on his back and dying the bed scarlet. He gripped the sheets tighter as Chizuru applied a warm, damp cloth to his wound.

“It’s not doing anything,” she muttered, looking over to Yamazaki with fear glazed over in her eyes. “He won’t stop bleeding.”

Yamazaki bit on the inside of his lower lip. His gaze flickered down their useless medical instruments, caked in dirt and blood, and then to the young man who could have been mistaken for a corpse if it weren’t for the spasms that wracked his body. Yamazaki ran a thumb over his knuckles when Heisuke moaned into the futon.

His cry distracted him from the sound of the shoji door sliding open. Sannan walked in, scanning the scene panning out before him. The faces of Chizuru and Yamazaki, slick with sweat and pale with worry, stared back. Sannan’s hands, firmly imbedded within his kimono sleeves, clutched something unseen with a new resolve.

“Clear this room immediately.” His voice was an illusion of steady ground in the panic. It commanded the attention of Heisuke, who writhed and twisted himself around as to gape at the man with eyes quickly draining of life.

Heisuke’s lungs felt as though they would collapse as he sucked in air. “Sannan…” His strength gave, and he fell back on the now-soaked futon. Chizuru reached a hand out to help him.

“I said, _clear this room now_ ,” repeated Sannan. The time they had left was quickly slipping through their fingertips. “Nothing has worked, correct?”

Yamazaki glowered at him as he made his way to Heisuke, his eyes flitting down to the hands that refused to show their spoils. “What are you going to do to him?”

Sannan stared back unblinkingly. “Nothing. It is his choice in the end.” With that, he pulled out the vial.

Chizuru inhaled sharply, jerking Heisuke out of his almost-sleepy haze and drawing his attention to the object in Sannan’s hand. Almost instinctively, he turned his head away, whipping his long hair across his mangled skin. Along the trace of every strand, it burned.

Heisuke heard voices, but could not decipher them in his current daze. The overwhelming, powerful shade of red filled his senses and snapped him into reality as Sannan placed the vial of ochimizu within a reaching’s distance away from his face.

Sannan snatched his empty hand away from the vial as though it scorched his fingertips. Heisuke could see his eyes, reappearing from behind the reflection of candlelight on his glasses. They were filled with emotion.

Nostalgia. Amity. Grief. Tears streamed down Heisuke’s face.

“Toudou, you are going to die.” These words caused the boy to grip the sheets to the point where holes formed where his fingertips dug into the fabric. “And unless you take this, that fate will remain the same.”

Heisuke couldn’t bring himself to look at the vial.

After a moment, Sannan murmured, “I’m not forcing you to drink it. It’s your choice.”

Heisuke’s mind was torn in two, ripped in half by regret and fear. He stood between life and death with one leg knee-deep in the grave and one hand desperately clinging onto life. The earth pulled him further into his coffin. The cold terrified him as it continued to swallow his limbs, numbing his senses and frantically searching for his heart. He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die.

A pale, shivering hand reached out and grabbed the flask. Sannan took a deep breath. Blood oozed between Heisuke’s fingers as his thumb clumsily attempted to push the lid, and when it fell to the floor a droplet of blood followed. He swallowed the contents with a single motion.

At once, a searing heat repelled all deathly ice within his veins and replaced it with fire. This was far from the warmth of life, however. No, this was a different kind of death: one that he would live and suffer through every day until he breathed his last. And it burned with a longing for blood.

Heisuke could feel sinew, muscle, skin stitching together the flesh on his back and healing his wound at a speed and efficiency not feasible by humans. This exhilarating sensation was only overpowered by a surging thirst that overwhelmed all reasoning.

It was fortunate Heisuke did not have his swords on him; Sannan surely would have lost his head that night.

Heisuke’s fingers stretched out and missed Sannan’s neck by millimeters. The older man jerked back, jumping into a defensive position. Heisuke remained on the floor. He shivered with half-contained energy, causing a veil of silver hair to cascade over his face. Slivers of scarlet gleamed hungrily through the tendrils.

Sannan straightened, fixing his gaze into the maddened eyes of his friend and keeping his hands close to his swords. Heisuke arose, wrenching away from the sheets entangled in his arms, lurching as each vertebrae reformed and rejoined back into his spine. He sucked in air through sharpened canines, the oxygen scathing his parched throat. It tasted red with his blood.

“Toudou.” At Sannan’s voice, Heisuke twitched his head towards the man. “Listen to me and understand. You are stronger than this.”

 _Stronger than what?_ The boy arose to his feet, losing his balance but finding his footing in the sodden, torn futon. He grinned with bared teeth.

Sannan put both his hands on his dachi, refusing to break eye contact but furrowing his brow. He remained silent.

 _I’ve never felt better._ Heisuke rose a quivering arm, intoxicated by the sweet scent of blood swaddling his entire body. He ran his tongue over his teeth. This was not the blood he wanted, however; his crimson eyes flitted, unfocused and sporadic, to Sannan.

The colonel unsheathed a sliver of his katana, the metal screeching as it collided with its casing. Heisuke was a skilled swordsman on his own, but with the heightened powers of a rasetsu he would be deadly. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and as the air emptied from his lungs so did the color in his hair.

“We are brothers, Toudou,” he attempted to reason with him again. Heisuke’s eyes still showed some twinkle of reasoning, not having completely lost himself to the lust of blood. “I understand you and your pain, and above all why you chose the serum.” His voice, previously level, now wavered with regret.

 _What could be so wrong with this?_ Heisuke hunched his shoulders, preparing to strike. A laugh bubbled up in his chest and spewed from his throat in a deranged chortle. At this sound, at his own voice, he blinked; the thirsty red of his irises fought back against the aquamarine that struggled to return sanity to his mind. Sannan saw this and lowered his guard.

“That’s it…”

Sannan’s voice yanked him back into the darkness. He lunged.

Both men slammed onto the floor, Heisuke on top of Sannan with his fingers curled around his neck. Through the film of silver hair, pointed teeth and scarlet eyes grinned.

Sannan lifted his legs and kicked at his underbelly, colliding both his feet into the boy’s ribcage. Heisuke flew back, hitting the ground and snapping his head against the tatami mats. Before he could recover, Sannan grabbed both of Heisuke’s arms and pinned them to his sides.

“Toudou!” he shouted, glasses askew. “Don’t make this another mistake!”

Heisuke lay there, staring directly into Sannan’s face but seeing nothing. A trickle of blood flowed from the back of his head. It didn’t matter: it would heal soon.

Sannan continued through pants. “Not only will this be your own mistake, but you’ll make it mine, as well.” He squeezed Heisuke’s arms, leaning in closer as to make certain that he heard him. “Do not place the burden of killing a comrade on my shoulders.”

Heartbeats of silence passed, drumming of hearts that should not beat but continue to do so. In those moments, Heisuke saw himself in the reflection of Sannan’s glasses. He was ravaged. He was monstrous. He was alive. This is what he wanted, right?

No. He hadn't wanted to save his life at the cost of another’s. He hadn't wanted to survive with hands that could tear apart everything and everyone he loved. He didn't want to face Chizuru with the burden of killing a comrade weighing on his shoulders.

Heisuke’s brow knitted, eyes glazing over with either madness or tears. Through his parted lips erupted an beastly, heartbroken cry, and Sannan braced himself. However, the power of the younger man deemed too much for him, and Heisuke whirled himself upright to slam Sannan’s back onto the wall. This time around, his grip that clutched onto Sannan’s kimono felt weaker.

Heisuke’s eyes overflowed with tears, and their weight dragged his head down. They poured down his face and dribbled off his chin in choked sobs. He spoke in a voice that sounded too growl-like, too high-pitched to be his. His throat was unimaginably dry.

“I’m sorry…” He clung onto his friend’s - his brother’s - kimono as though it were his life line. Softly, as not to hurt him, he laid his forehead on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Sannan let the boy weep into his kimono, trembling like the last leaf that still clung to life on a dead tree. He knew, and he assumed Heisuke knew as well, that this was only the beginning. The path ahead would only become darker and more arduous from here. Only his sobs broke the night.

Never before had Sannan regretted his choice in researching the ochimizu. Never before had he stopped to question if what he was doing was right. He always stood stoically besides his comrades as they chose life or death, humanity or monstrosity. Their screams were merely part of the process, a necessary evil before they were welcomed as an official member of the corps. Failure always hovered throughout the procedure; more than once he had needed to cut down a former-ally due to the unfortunate but foreseen consequences of taking the serum. He had seen this too many times to count.

This time was different.

At Heisuke's cries, the colonel's hair stood on end. At his unnatural two-toned whimper, his chest tightened. At the memories of what the boy used to be, Sannan grieved. His comment of them being brothers was made without thinking, an attempt to prevent an unfavorable - but entirely possible - demise from occurring. He hadn't realized how close to the truth it actually was until now.

Heisuke slowly lost his touch of consciousness, and as the darkness closed in he heard a heartbroken voice respond. “No, Toudou, I should be the one who’s sorry. I’ve made a mistake.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a really quick fic I had in my drafts for awhile now, which is why I posted this before anything else. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've ever gotten the full scene of Heisuke's transformation in-game nor in-anime. We got pretty close to seeing Heisuke becoming a rasetsu in Kyoto Ranbu, which is what this fic is based on. I know that Sannan's probably OOC here if he were in Heisuke's route (which is where this fic takes place), but hey, I needed an emotional ending. You guys know the struggle.
> 
> About that comment in the tags, search up the cover of Hakujitsu (白日) by Kobasolo while reading this to get maximum feels for Heisuke's struggles, especially with his broken friendship with Sannan and budding relationship with Chizuru.
> 
> The original title for this was supposed to be "Convalescence," but then Panic! At the Disco's "Trade Mistakes" came along and hit me upside the head with Heisuke x Chizuru feels and here we are now.
> 
> Thank you for reading! ^-^


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